Pint of Bitter Scene – The Wolfman (2010)

The movie didn’t go down so well and I feel after the success of the Invisible Man  there might be a new remake coming soon to help solidify the return of the Universal Monsters. While there were a lot of ups and downs within the film, this was one of the subtle highlights.

Hugo Weaving plays Inspector Francis Aberline, a character who is based on Frederick Abberline, a Scotland Yard Inspector that investigated London’s Jack the Ripper murders in 1888. This fantasy version of him very much resembles the one in From Hell (2001).

Zombie Vs Shark

In the summer of 1979 Lucio Fulci released Zombi 2 also known as Island of the Living Dead, also known as Nightmare Island and sometimes known as Zombie Flesh Eaters, and possibly many other titles. This bold and sensual movie was intended as an unofficial sequel to George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), it was quite a popular theme for Italian directors to make unofficial sequels to American releases, for me the most iconic would be Alien 2 : On Earth (1980) which was Ciro Ippolito and Biagio Proietti’s attempt to make an earth bound sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 cult classic Alien. It’s as different as day and night to Alien and the intended sequel Aliens, but it’s a really wacky but thrilling lower budget movie. It’s brilliant that the ambition to make a daring sequel spurred on a wonderful director to try and achieve something new, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Favourite Scene – Are you not entertained gladiator?

Gladiator – is you not entertained?

Gladiator was quite an experience at the cinema, I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only person crying at the end, but I was more impressed with this bold new hero that was chucking swords into the crowd!  

A bit of background, Gladiator is about a Roman called Maximus Decimus Meridius played by Russell Crowe, who is in charge of and has gained the respect of a massive army, but on the very day the Emperor has promised him a succession the Emperor is killed by his jealous son who usurps the leadership.

In the meantime the Maximus refuses to believe the flimsy story that the Emperor died in his sleep bull shit and is sent out to be killed by the jealous son, he escapes and heads back to Spain to protect his family, but gets there just in time to see their charred bodies hanging in the gardens, from there on Maximus is a broken man. He gets picked up by Oliver Reed , an ex Gladiator himself, who managed to win his freedom and now pimps him as a gladiator, but while he’s excellent at despatching other slaves in the mini coliseums, he has little outbursts, frustrated that the man who slaughtered his family is still living and breathing, and this has to be his best outburst!

 

This scene is particularly interesting as Reed (Proximo) can see the greatness in Maximus and is trying to coach him into winning his freedom but Maximus is a lost cause at this stage, acting more like Kevin and Perry. He tells him to remember that he’s an entertainer. Maximinus then goes out on his own to kill the other gladiators and after the short electric bloodbath and decapitation he launches a sword at the nobility and shouts “are you not entertained” but even after this outburst, the crowd still chant his name in respect. No matter what he does he will be loved by the crowds, something that will come to save his life later on in the movie.

For sure folks, are you not entertained??

 

My favourite scene – The Witch Who came from the Sea (1976) – Rock a bye baby

This lesser known video nasty from the mid 70’s has a small but dedicated cult following. The tagline of “Molly really knows how to cut men down to size” is a bit more descriptive of the film as Molly isn’t really a witch and doesn’t really come from the sea.

She does live and work along the seafront and gets a lot of shoddy tattoos by a scary weirdo, but after being sexually abused as a child by her grandfather she hates men and enjoys slicing and dicing them.

Un Prophete (2009) Cell Hit

Un Prophete is one of the most outstanding French movies of modern times, and possibly one of the best prison films ever in my honest opinion. It sees the induction of a young illiterate man into a hostile and dehumanising situation, after being picked up and slammed into prison, the nervous novice is prey to the more experienced inmates who force him to perform a hit (or bi hit), the person is aware that he’s a targeted man so Malik has to be trained on how to hide a weapon and to gain his trust. First Malik is tutored on how to hold a razor blade in his mouth and carry on a conversation and eat and drink without cutting himself, he’s shown where to cut to kill his target quick, the lessons and short and sharp. He then makes himself available for a private meeting with the target but Malik  gets nervous and accidently cuts himself, while being made at home by a victim, another human who is actually being kind to him, he has no beef with this man but if he doesn’t go through with the hit then he knows he’ll end up dead next.

Robocop – the making of a martyr

When I was a youngster I had a copy of Robocop on Video, along with a lot of my friends and we all agreed that there were two scenes that we had watched frame for frame and probably wore our videos’ bald for those two scenes, not even the tracking could save them.

T-800 eyeball repair..

Terminator is definitely one of my all time favourite sci fi movies, and the only decent film form the franchise in my honest opinion. While the movie is limited with its mechanical effects apart from the metallic ending there is the iconic repair scene in which the Terminator T-800 machine acted by Arnold Schwarzenegger repairs some of the damage to the fleshy bits around it’s mechanical skeletal frame.

My Favourite Scene – Manhunter

 

Manhunter is definitely one of my all time favorite movies, and there are many scenes which spark many different emotions but this one, the introduction of Hannibal played by the multi talented Brian Box is one which stand out. Brian’s portrayal of the criminal cannibal is very different from the charm emitted by Anthony Hopkins later on in the series, instead there is a sharp coldness and more cunning with his more animated character, the sexy factor is off and the game is on..

Favourite Scene – Viy (1967)

In this 1960’s folklore inspired horror fest, a young monk, Khoma;  is tasked with saying prayers over the body of a beautiful maiden who is in fact a witch and she terrorising him each night, the tormenting intensifies until the last night where the showdown unleashed all the goblins and trolls the witch can muster and the novice monk has an epic show down and has to basically exorcise the witch. This show down is amazing and I feel that for these scene alone the film should be recognised by more people.

Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000) – Theft

Despite it not being critically acclaimed I really was griped by this movie, it’s a bit tongue in cheek and the cheekiness continues throughout the film. It really isn’t something that you should be taking too seriously. And with scenes like this art theft it’s easy to see that this isn’t a gritty crime thriller in the slightest.